South Korea’s National Assembly Speaker visits Parliament

The delegation led by Park Byeong-Seug, Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea made a special visit to Parliament on Friday (21) morning to make a courtesy call on Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardana, Parliament's Department of Communications stated.

Speaker Abeywardana also made a special announcement to the House welcoming the Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea, to Parliament.

Adressing the distinguished delegation, Speaker Abeywardana emphasized that an Open Parliament policy has been adopted with the intention of enhancing citizen participation and engagement in the parliamentary process to address the widening gap between the Parliament and the citizens. He added that measures have been taken to strengthen the parliamentary democratic system which will be useful to ensure the transparency and accountability of the parliamentary process through the newly established Department of Communication and by way of opening sessions of the Committee on Public Enterprises and the Committee on Public Accounts to the media.

The Speaker further stated that the Parliament of Sri Lanka initiated an ambitious digitalization program enabling multilingual searching and that the e- Library of the Parliament provides platform for a library archival system. Furthermore, the Speaker expressed the intentions of a “Paperless Parliament”.

Upgrading of the Parliament website is now in process and is expected to be completed by the end of this year, he added. 

Speaker Park Byeong-Seug, while commending the efforts of the Sri Lanka Parliament enhancing citizen participation and engagement, stated that they too are steering towards achieving the same. He also extended an invitation to Speaker Abeywardana to visit Korea.

Addressing the gathering, Foreign Minister Prof. G. L. Peiris emphasized three tangible benefits given the strengthening bilateral relations between the two nations following the visit of Park Byeong-Seug. The Foreign Minister stated that this visit has fostered more employment opportunities for Sri Lankans in Korea, vocational training and greater investment and participation by Korean companies in the development of economy in Sri Lanka.

Dinesh Gunawardena, Minister of Education and Leader of the House of Parliament, Johnston Fernando, Minister of Highways and Chief Government Whip, Angajan Ramanathan, Deputy Chairperson of Committees, Lakshman Kiriella, chief opposition whip, Dayasiri Jayasekara, President of the Korea – Sri Lanka Parliamentary Friendship Association, Premitha Bandara Tennakoon, Secretary to the Korea – Sri Lanka Parliamentary Friendship Association, Nimal Siripala de Silva and the Secretary General of Parliament Dhammika Dasanayake were present at this special occasion.